LANSING — When lawmakers return from a two-week break on Tuesday, a few lingering and controversial issues — mandating changes to retiree benefits for local government employees, allowing concealed weapons in gun-free zones and eliminating the hefty driver responsibility fees — will confront them for the final three weeks of the legislative session.

The House of Representatives spent its last month of session unsuccessfully trying to get changes passed to Michigan’s no-fault auto insurance system, losing the vote on the bill by a 45-63 vote.

And while that issue sucked all the oxygen from the legislative chambers last month, it’s not expected to be in play again this year. It will be replaced by yet another effort by the state to mandate how local government provide benefits to its retirees — a move designed to help address spiraling legacy costs faced by many counties, cities, villages and townships.

Republican leadership in both the House and Senate cite the Other Post-Employment Benefits, or OPEB, reform as a top priority to get done this year.

“We have a good opportunity to help local communities that are over-committed. Some are doing really, really well and we don’t want to do something to upset their apple cart and make it harder for them,” said Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive. “So it’s a tiptoe, but I think we can get there.”

The last time the Legislature tried to change benefits for municipal employees during the lame duck session in 2016, police and firefighters from across the state descended on Lansing for a mass rally to oppose the legislation. Their efforts were successful and the Legislature tabled the proposals. And for the opponents, 2017 will be no different.

Unions and law enforcement organizations, still angry over the Legislature's passage of right-to-work laws during the lame duck session of 2012 and changes to teacher pensions earlier this year, have put out the word that they’ll rally at the Capitol on Wednesday morning to urge legislators to protect the benefits that police and fire personnel have earned.

But even more controversial, and consequential issues, also are expected to come up:

Concealed weapons

The Senate passed and the House is expected to at least hold a hearing on legislation allowing the concealed carry of handguns in places that have traditionally been off limits to guns, such as schools, churches, day care centers, bars and stadiums. Under the legislation, concealed pistol license holders could get an endorsement on their licenses exempting them from gun-free zone restrictions if they have taken at least eight hours of additional training or are a certified firearms instructor.

Senate Bills 584-586 wouldn't limit the ability of private property owners to ban guns on their premises. It also wouldn't bar universities from using their constitutional powers to regulate the carrying of guns on their campuses. And it would close a loophole under which concealed pistol license holders could bring guns into schools and other no-go zones, provided they carried the guns openly.

“It’s going to get taken up,” said Rep. Jim Runestad, R-White Lake, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which will consider the gun bills as early as this week. “But there’s going to have to be a discussion of running it as-is or if there needs to be changes.”

Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed similar legislation in 2012, just four days after a horrific shooting in Newtown, Conn., when a heavily armed man muscled his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 first-graders and six adults. His spokeswoman, Anna Heaton, said last week that Snyder has concerns about the Senate bill, but still plans to review the final version if it’s passed.

The Senate version of the bill could get a more favorable look from Snyder than a bill passed by the House in June that would allow concealed carry of weapons without a permit or training.

Driver responsibility fees

The dreaded driver responsibility fees that have plagued thousands of Michigan drivers since 2003 are probably on their way to elimination and even forgiveness of at least a portion of the $647 million in outstanding debt held by drivers who have gotten tickets over the last 14 years.

Both the House and Senate overwhelmingly passed different versions of the bills and the two chambers must now negotiate a compromise.

The House version ends the driver responsibility fees on Oct. 1, 2018, and forgives the debt owed by drivers. The Senate bills also eliminate the fees on Oct. 1, 2018, but only forgive debt that is at least six years old — about $304.3 million of the $634 million total and deemed uncollectible and forgiven. Driver responsibility fees that are less than six years old would not be forgiven and the Department of Treasury could continue to try to collect those fees through tactics such as garnishing income-tax refunds.

Driver responsibility fees, ranging from $100 to $2,000, were passed in 2003 to help fill a budget hole when Michigan’s economy faltered. And the money raised — between $99 million and $115 million a year — did help the state’s general fund. According to the Michigan Department of Treasury, nearly 350,000 Michigan drivers still owe $634 million in driver responsibility fees.

Both the House and Senate would like to reach a conclusion on the issue before the end of the year.

“Both sides are pretty clear on what they want to do,” said Gideon D’Assandro, spokesman for Speaker of the House Tom Leonard, R-DeWitt. “So that is definitely a possibility.”

Retiree benefit reform

The renewed effort to change the way local units of government provide retiree benefits is still in the works, said state Rep. Jim Lower, R-Cedar Lake, but bills should be introduced soon if they have any chance of passing before the end of the year.

The plan would require local governments to stop providing a defined benefit for retiree health care by July 1, 2018, and switch to a program such as a health savings account. It wouldn’t mandate a change in how a municipality provides retiree pension benefits.

“In the public sector, unions create their own retiree health care,” Lower said. “Something like that would be acceptable, too. And then you wouldn’t have government bearing all of the risk.”

The plan also would create a five-phase process to determine the health of a municipality’s retirement funds. If the funds had a balance of at least 60% or more, the state would leave them alone. But if they fell below that line, then the state would provide direction and oversight of that community’s retirement funds.

“If you take a look at the data, there are just varying levels of funding across the state and the biggest danger is if a community goes bankrupt or their fund runs out of money,” Lower said. “There are lot of communities where that’s a risk to happen.”